Another Biological explanation of eating disorders is that they are genetically inherited. The A.P.A (1994) stated that, from diagnostic statistics, there is an increased risk of eating disorders amongst first-degree Biological relatives (siblings, parents and children). Research done by Holland et al (1984), into monozygotic twins (MZ) and dizygotic twins (DZ), MZ twins have exactly the same genes whereas DZ twins need be no more alike then any normal siblings. The nature of this research was to see if MZ twins have a higher concordance (meaning that they both have the same disorder) rate then DZ twins in relation to Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa, because if they were then environmental factors could be eliminated from explanations of the causes of eating disorders.
Holland et al found that there was a 55% concordance rate between MZ twins and only a 7% concordance rate in the DZ twins, however this still leaves the fact that just under half of the MZ twins (45%) were discordant (where only one twin has the disorder). Kendler et al (1991) found a similar result for the sufferers of Bulimia Nervosa, among 2,163 female twins there was a 23% concordance rate between MZ twins and only an 8.7% concordance rate between DZ twins, even though there is a considerably higher concordance rate amongst MZ twins then DZ twins there are still a high proportion of discordant MZ twins 45% in Holland et al’s studies and a massive 77% discordant in Kendler et al’s study of Bulimic sufferers.
People have criticised the biological model claiming that the genetic theory can’t fully explain why many twins in the same family have the same eating disorder as they will usually grow up in the same environment as well, this can be used as environmental factors play a big part the occurrence of eating disorders. Figures have shown that the number of people that are suffering from eating disorders has increased by a huge amount in the past 30 years so genetics can’t fully explain the reasons for eating disorders as the media (newspapers, television and advertising) have become increasingly obsessed with the idea of the “perfect body” and that people must look a certain way to be beautiful. It is very hard to tell with the genetics theory is that it is often very difficult to differentiate between cause and effect, does the eating disorder cause the chemical imbalance due to the physical effects of the eating disorder, or is a chemical imbalance the cause of the eating disorder to begin with?
The fact that eating disorders are mainly located in young girls (about to approach adolescence) has caused many Psychological theorists to believe that Anorexia is related to the fact that these young girls are sexually developing and brings on sexual fears such as becoming pregnant or even being “orally impregnated” (becoming pregnant orally). It is believed that is pregnancy is related to eating then semi-starvation should prevent becoming pregnant, also not eating results in amenorrhoea which will prevent pregnancy because it causes ovulation to stop taking place.
Another psychodynamic account that still focused on sexual development is based on the assumption that Anorexia Nervosa takes place in females who have an unconscious desire to remain pre-pubescent. The fact they are not eating properly will stop them from developing the body shape associated with adult females and this will allow them to maintain the illusion that they are still children. There is some evidence that eating disorders occur in females that have been sexually abused at some point in their early childhood lives and that they think that if they destroy their bodies by not eating then they will not be seen as sexually attractive and the earlier incidents will not be repeated.
McLelland et al (1991) did a study in an eating disorder clinic based on the explanation that eating disorders are caused by people being sexually abused at a young age. He found that 30% of the patients surveyed had suffered sexual abuse at a young age. These experiences were repressed into the unconscious mind and came out in the form of Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa as a way of dealing with what had happened, this was there chosen way of dealing with the repressed memories as they were disgusted at their bodies for what was done to them.
Minuchin, Rosenman and Baker (1978) developed the idea that family may also play an important part in the development of eating disorders. The family of an Anorexic is characterised by Enmeshment (meaning that no-one in the family has a clear identity because everything is done together). These families place great constraints on the children due to the fact they are not allowed to become independent. According to Psychological theory adolescence is the fifth stage of psychosexual development and is a time for developing a strong sense of independence. The eating disorder developed in these situations may be caused by the patient trying to distinguish a sense of independence or rebel against the family that didn’t allow them to establish a strong sense of independence needed to fully complete the first stages of socialisation.
There is also some evidence of high levels of parental conflict within the families of the people that suffer with Anorexia Nervosa. Kalucy, Crisp and Harding (1977) and Hsu (1990) reported that families of Anorexics tend to be very ambitious, to ignore or deny conflicts and tend to blame other people for problems that they may face.
There are many problems with the family systems theory. First parental conflicts might have evolved from having an Anorexic child rather then a child becoming Anorexic due to conflict between their parents. Second, these family conflicts have appeared in families throughout history and therefore this explanation would fail to account for the recent increase in eating disorders, it also doesn’t explain why more girls suffer from eating disorders then boys, surely all children are affected in the same way by parental conflicts, this explanation also fails to explain why eating disorders are more commonly occurring during the child’s adolescent years.
The Cognitive model focus’s on the fact that sufferer’s of eating disorders tend to have distorted body images, known as Cognitive bias’s. In order to assess Anorexic’s perception of there own bodyweight and size, they can be exposed to an image distorting technique designed to provide information about their whole body. This is basically what Garfinkel and Garner (1982) found when their research showed that Anorexic patients tend to over estimate their bodyweight and under estimate the bodyweight of the people they model themselves against.
Bulimic patients also tend to have distorted body images, even though bulimic patients are not necessarily overweight, the patients tend to show a substantial discrepancy between their actual and desired bodyweights. In an investigation launched by Fallon and Rozin (1985) they asked men and women to write down their ideal bodyweight and the ideal bodyweight of a member of the opposite sex. The results showed that female’s ideal bodyweight was generally much lower then the men would have liked and that the ideal male bodyweight was a lot higher then the females said they would ideally like their partner to be. These results showed how the media and environmental factors can affect the way people think about, and see their own bodies and the bodies of those people that they model themselves upon.
The cognitive approach has been questioned as to whether these cognitive bias’s exist before the onset of eating disorders and play a part in their development or if the cognitive biases will appear after the onset of the eating disorders, in which case they cannot be a casual factor.
Eating disorders have been around for along time and are a very serious problem in our society, they tend to affect young girls approaching or in the early stages of adolescence. There is not enough evidence to show that eating disorders come from any one disease or if they are genetically inherited (like the twins study suggests). The amount of people suffering from these eating disorders has increased dramatically in the past 30 years and it is becoming ever more apparent that society and the media is playing a big part in the development of these disorders. The study of Egyptian women in Egypt and in London has (done by Naseer) shown that in Egypt, where there is no media representation that “thin is beautiful”, eating disorders are very rare, whereas in London where we are ruled by this ideal, eating disorders arte very common. But currently the dominant idea of how eating disorders are formed is the psychodynamic approach that states that these disorders are being developed because of sexual abuse in the early childhood of women and the fact that individuality is frowned upon in families and eating disorders are occurring as an easy form of rebellion by saying “you can’t make me eat, I control what I eat and what I don’t eat”.
Jack Waters 12RTC
